WASHINGTON — A Maryland couple facing espionage charges spent years collecting classified information, planning to sell it to a foreign country for as much as $5 million in cryptocurrency and then leave the United States, according to material laid out by prosecutors and the F.B.I. in federal court on Wednesday.An F.B.I. agent read what he said were excerpts from encrypted messages between the couple, Jonathan and Diana Toebbe, from 2019, before they reached out to the foreign country and as they considered whether to sell the secret information about the nuclear reactors that power Virginia-class nuclear submarines. Mr. Toebbe expressed ambivalence, writing about one of their proposed plans: “It’s not morally defensible either. We convince ourselves it is fine, but really isn’t either.”Ms. Toebbe, the agent said, responded: “I have no problem with any of it. I feel no loyalty to abstractions.”Image
The Toebbes appeared in a federal court in Martinsburg, W.Va., on Wednesday.Credit...Wesley AllsbrookThe Toebbes are accused of attempting to sell closely held secrets of America’s submarine technology to an undisclosed foreign government. Both pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to one count of conspiracy to communicate restricted data and two counts of communication of restricted data in federal court in Martinsburg, W.Va.The hearing also considered whether they could be granted bail. Mr. Toebbe offered no legal defense, and did not contest his detention. The magistrate judge, Robert W. Trumble, did not immediately rule on Ms. Toebbe’s detention, saying he would issue a written order later.The F.B.I. still does not know the whereabouts of most of the information an agent said the Toebbes were offering to sell to the foreign government. It also has not recovered the $100,000 in cryptocurrency paid to them by the undercover agents as they pursued the case.Arguing that Ms. Toebbe should remain in jail, prosecutors expressed concerns that she might still have access to the missing funds and could attempt to share the unrecovered data.But Ms. Toebbe’s team argued vigorously against her detention, saying she had never had access to classified documents, needed access to her doctors and was not a flight risk. Ms. Toebbe also nodded along as her lawyer, Edward B. MacMahon Jr., stressed the need to allow her to look after the couple’s two children, ages 11 and 15.Mr. MacMahon argued that the evidence in the case would show Mr. Toebbe stole the information and wrote the notes to the undercover officers while Ms. Toebbe played only a minor role in the scheme.But Jessica Lieber Smolar, a federal prosecutor, disputed that characterization. Prosecutors argued that she helped devise the plan, and meticulously went through evidence that they said showed she had acted as a lookout for her husband, belying the idea that she thought they were just out for a leisurely weekend stroll.Ms. Smolar argued that Ms. Toebbe posed a flight risk if allowed free before trial and that simply monitoring her location and ordering her not to use the internet could not prevent her from finding ways to share national secrets.On Oct. 5, 2020, Ms. Toebbe wrote to her husband on the encrypted app, “I think we need to be actively making plans to leave the country.”But Mr. MacMahon argued that various documents collected in the case showed that his client wanted to leave the country if former President Donald J. Trump had been re-elected.“She’s not the only liberal that is wanting to leave the country over politics,” Mr. MacMahon said.Prosecutors and the F.B.I. portrayed the Toebbes as beginning to make plans to sell American secrets as early as 2018. Prosecutors also said in court proceedings that the foreign country that had received the offer to sell the information voluntarily turned it over to the F.B.I., setting off the investigation into the Toebbes.An F.B.I. agent who surveilled the couple, Peter Olinits, told the court that a letter sent by the Toebbes to the foreignBy: Julian E. Barnes and Zach Montague
Title: Couple Pleads Not Guilty in Spy Case as Prosecutors Lay Out New Details
Sourced From: www.nytimes.com/2021/10/20/us/politics/jonathan-diana-toebbe-hearing.html
Published Date: Wed, 20 Oct 2021 23:36:12 +0000
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